This beautiful garden combines raised beds, arching trellises and vertical growing to create a productive garden that feels almost like walking through a living tunnel.
The design is especially useful for gardeners who want to grow more food in a smaller space, keep vegetables easier to harvest, and turn an ordinary vegetable garden into something beautiful. Here’s how to recreate the look.
What You’ll Need
- 2 long raised garden beds
- Lumber, logs or raised-bed kits
- Several sturdy garden hoops or arches
- Trellis netting, garden mesh or wire fencing
- Garden soil and compost
- Mulch
- Drip irrigation or soaker hoses
- Seeds or vegetable transplants
- Garden ties or soft plant clips
1. Build Two Long Raised Beds
Create two parallel raised beds with a walking path running between them. A practical starting size is approximately:
Beds: 3–4 feet wide
Path: 3–4 feet wide
Bed length: 8–16+ feet
Keeping the beds around four feet wide allows you to reach most plants without stepping into the soil. The beds in the photo have a rustic appearance created with stacked logs, but you could also use:
- Cedar boards
- Raised-bed kits
- Landscape timbers
- Metal garden beds
- Stone or brick
Garden Tip: Before building, choose an area that receives approximately 6–8+ hours of direct sunlight per day.
2. Create the Garden Tunnel
The feature that makes this garden special is the series of arches spanning the pathway.
Install sturdy hoops or arches from one raised bed to the other.
Space the arches approximately 3–4 feet apart along the beds.
Depending on your garden, you could use:
- Cattle panels
- Heavy-duty wire fencing
- Metal garden arches
- PVC hoops with strong trellis netting
- Purpose-built vegetable trellises
For heavy crops, a rigid metal trellis system is preferable to lightweight netting.
Secure the structure firmly because mature vines loaded with vegetables can become surprisingly heavy.
3. Add Trellis Support
If your arches don’t already have a grid for plants to climb, attach trellis netting or wire mesh over them.
Make sure the openings are large enough that you can easily reach through to harvest vegetables.
As plants grow, gently guide new vines toward the trellis.
Most climbing plants will eventually begin grabbing onto the structure themselves.
4. Plant Climbing Vegetables Along the Tunnel
Plant your tallest and most vigorous climbing crops near the inside edges of the raised beds so they can grow up and over the arches.
Cucumbers - Cucumbers are ideal for this design. Training them vertically keeps the fruit off the ground and makes cucumbers much easier to spot and harvest.
Pole Beans - Pole beans quickly climb a trellis and can eventually create a beautiful leafy canopy overhead.
Small Squash - Smaller climbing squash varieties can be trained vertically. Heavy fruit may need additional support with slings.
Other possibilities include:
- Peas
- Runner beans
- Small gourds
- Mini pumpkins
- Climbing nasturtiums
Important: Large pumpkins, melons and heavy winter squash need an especially strong structure, and developing fruit may require slings for support.
5. Grow Tomatoes Vertically
The tomatoes in this garden add another layer of vertical growth. Plant indeterminate tomatoes beside sturdy stakes, cages or trellises and train them upward throughout the season.
Keeping tomatoes vertical can:
- Improve airflow
- Make harvesting easier
- Keep fruit away from the soil
- Use garden space more efficiently
- Create the lush vertical appearance seen in the photo
Don’t rely on lightweight overhead netting alone to support large tomato plants. Give tomatoes their own sturdy supports.
6. Fill the Lower Level With Smaller Crops
One of the secrets to this garden is that almost every level is being used.
While cucumbers, beans and tomatoes grow upward, use the remaining bed space for shorter crops.
Try planting:
Lettuce
Basil
Carrots
Radishes
Green onions
Parsley
Spinach
Marigolds
Nasturtiums
This creates a layered garden rather than having bare soil underneath the taller vegetables.
7. Think About Sunlight Before Planting
Before deciding which side gets tomatoes, cucumbers or beans, determine the direction of the sun in your garden.
Tall crops can shade shorter vegetables.
In the Northern Hemisphere, placing many of your tallest crops toward the north side of shorter crops can help prevent them from blocking too much sunlight.
However, the tunnel itself will naturally create some afternoon shade.
That isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Heat-sensitive crops such as lettuce and spinach may actually appreciate some protection during the hottest part of summer.
8. Install Irrigation
A garden this densely planted will need consistent watering.
Instead of watering everything from overhead, run drip irrigation or soaker hoses along each raised bed. This delivers water directly to the root zone while helping keep foliage dry.
Add approximately 2–3 inches of organic mulch around established plants to help:
- Retain moisture
- Suppress weeds
- Protect the soil
- Reduce temperature fluctuations
Straw, shredded leaves and untreated grass clippings can all work well.
9. Train the Plants Every Week
A tunnel garden needs a little maintenance while the plants are growing.
Once or twice each week:
- Guide cucumber vines onto the trellis
- Redirect bean vines
- Tie tomatoes to their supports
- Check for overcrowding
- Remove damaged or diseased foliage
- Check underneath leaves for pests
- Harvest vegetables regularly
A few minutes of training each week can prevent the garden from turning into a tangled mass later in the summer.
10. Keep the Centre Path Clear
Leave a comfortable pathway through the middle.
A 3–4 foot path gives you enough room to walk, carry harvest baskets and work comfortably.
You could cover the pathway with:
- Wood chips
- Gravel
- Mulch
- Stepping stones
- Compacted soil
Wood chips would complement the natural raised beds particularly well.
Simple Planting Plan
For a garden approximately 12–16 feet long, you could try:
LEFT BED
Tunnel edge:
Cucumbers + pole beans
Middle:
Tomatoes
Front/outer edge:
Basil + lettuce + radishes + marigolds
RIGHT BED
Tunnel edge:
Pole beans + climbing cucumbers + small squash
Middle:
Tomatoes or peppers
Front/outer edge:
Carrots + onions + herbs + nasturtiums
The exact arrangement should be adjusted according to which direction your garden faces and where the strongest sunlight falls.
Simple Layout
Raised Bed | 3–4 ft Path | Raised Bed
The arches span from one bed to the other:
BED → ARCH → PATH → ARCH → BED
As the vines grow, they travel upward and eventually across the pathway, creating the beautiful vegetable tunnel effect.
How Long Will It Take to Look Like the Photo?
Don’t expect the tunnel to look full immediately.
Spring: Build beds, install arches and plant.
Early summer: Begin training vines vertically.
Mid-summer: Cucumbers and beans start covering the arches.
Late summer: The garden reaches its lushest stage, with vegetables hanging throughout the tunnel.
Fast-growing pole beans and cucumbers are particularly good for creating that dramatic overhead effect.
The Secret to This Garden
The real trick isn’t simply growing a lot of vegetables.
It’s growing upward instead of outward.
By combining raised beds with vertical trellises and planting at several different heights, you can fit an impressive amount of food into a relatively small garden while creating a space that’s beautiful to walk through.
The result is part vegetable garden, part garden tunnel—and a very enjoyable place to harvest dinner.